Spiritual Formation: Hidden in God with Christ

“For you died, and your life is now hidden in God with Christ." Col 3:3

This is the 4th of a 4-blog entry "series"
 

Finishing up the garage was hard because so much had to go.  Some of those things were things that I treasured; others were things I did not want to admit were there. But now my car can reside in the garage and in the winter when it rains, I have a shelter to enter before going out into the storm.  Cleaning out the garage of my heart is even harder!  It is a "death" for sure!  But God is increasingly taking up residence in me.

 In His amazing grace, He allowed me to see his vision for that heart-place-residence, and it started with a picture of baptism.  It was really just a sweet place of prayer between myself and the Trinity.  It went like this... As I stood with the Trinity, different versions of me appeared on the scene, my cynical sixteen-year-old self, my newly married twenty-three-year-old self, and my present self.  We were together as six members in a circle joined hand in hand when God motioned for all of us to descend as if the space we were in had become a baptismal.  We went under and back up – and in that simple mental image God spoke something profound.

 “For you died, and your life is now hidden in God with Christ…You have been crucified with Christ and you no longer live, but Christ lives in you. The life you now live in the body you live by faith in the son of God, who loved you and gave himself up for you.” (Col 3:3, Gal 2:20)

So what died?

1.      My demand over the vision I hold for my marriage.

2.      My past commitment to being right and making sure things are correct.

3.      My preoccupation with trying to change the ones I love. I make a terrible holy spirit, by-the-way.

4.      My habitual commitment to hold on to offences.  Frankly, I was collecting them like a sea-rock collects barnacles! It was time to stop ruminating on my anger.

5.    and ...  My compulsive habit of defending myself when criticized or misunderstood.

I’m sure there’s more but that would make this blog way too long.  Suffice it to say that in the letting go, God showed up “and I stood there saved, surprised to be loved.” (2 Sam 22:15)

There is a surprising shelter that comes from being hidden in God with Christ.  It affords integrity and covering in the storm – a storm in which I am compelled to enter as one would set out to drive in the rain, seeking the promise of the sun on the other side.

"I long to dwell in your tent forever and take refuge in the shelter of your wings."  - Psalm 61:4